Terminal cancer patient gets birthday party wish

(KSDK) -- All Jorie Rogers wanted was for her son to have the most amazing first birthday party ever.

Thanks to an Illinois non-profit called 3 Little Birds 4 Life, and a few strangers who were touched by her story, that wish came true Saturday in Ladue.

"We didn't know until after he was born that he had the down syndrome. But of all the things that could go wrong, if that's the worst then we can handle down syndrome," says Jorie Rogers.

She got pregnant during her second bout with a rare form of cancer called Paraganglioma. She's now in hospice care.

"My cancer has unfortunately progressed to a point where there's really nothing else that we can do. We've pretty much run the gamut and tried everything. So we're just going to live out the rest of the days as best we can and be as happy as we can with the time we have left."

She says knew this party would make her happiest.

"It's very special because not only are we celebrating my son's first year and everything that he had to go through to get here, but it's the one birthday that I'll get with him," Rogers says. "And we get to celebrate the one year that we had together."

"She had three things that were at the top of her list," says 3 Little Birds 4 Life Event Planner Sabrina Torti. "She wanted lots and lots of balloons. She wanted a bounce house. And she wanted a clown. So we made sure those were the first three things that we secured."

And Torti made sure she got them, and more.

"One thing she didn't think about, which was my first call, was to a professional photographer because i wanted her to have those images for the rest of her life and for Tristan's life to look back on this day."

"It's so much more than I could have hoped for. It's amazing," Rogers says.

All the cake and gifts aside, she says this wish is a gift that she hopes will give to Tristan long after she's gone.

"I want him to be able to look back on videos and pictures from today and hear the stories about today, and for him to know how much his mom loved him. And for him to know how hard his mom fought to be here for him."

This party was the 12th wish granted by 3 Little Birds for Life, and they have several more in the works. For more information about this organization, you check out their website.